Free Kiss the Enemy (Slye Temp) by Dianna Love Page B

forced them open. They fluttered again. Darkness closed in.
    Lurch tossed her against a wall, scraping her skin as she slid down. Her hands were tied behind her. He unzipped his pants...
    She snapped awake, shouting, “No!” But the word had been a harsh sound too quiet to scare a rat. She looked toward the slit in the door. The room was fully dark except for a thin stream of moonlight.
    Where was Dragan?
    She turned back to the hole, a lifeline she couldn’t lose. “Hey?”  She waited. “You there?”  Don’t panic. He might not be dead. “Sugar?” 
    She quieted her breathing and listened.
    No sound. He was still being interrogated. Still alive. Keep believing .
    Her head still pounded, but she was more lucid than last time she was awake.
    Their captors had begun with simple beatings, which were nothing more than a starting point for breaking a prisoner to gain information.
    Tonight the bastards would take it up a notch.
    By tomorrow neither she nor Dragan would be able to fight back. They had to get out now.  
    Just like six years ago when she’d escaped on the run from another mess.
    One that had involved another sexy man on the wrong side of the law. Starting to see a pattern here . She hadn’t thought of Pierre in a long time. He’d been the one she’d fallen hard for, the one she’d been sure was not a criminal. She’d missed that one by a mile.
    Had he escaped capture in France?
    The last time she’d seen him, he’d left her in their tousled bed after taking a phone call that had ended hours of the best sex she’d ever had before or since. He’d hurriedly dressed, promising to call later, and rushed out.
    Oh, he’d called all right.
    Two hours later, she’d answered the phone, prepared to tell him she was still nude, when he told her to get as far away as she could. Men were coming for him and would go through her.
    Leave the apartment ? she’d asked.
    The country. Get out of France. Hide.
    But she’d gone to France to hide.
    That was her life. Always looking over her shoulder and trying to stay one step ahead of capture. But she’d missed a step this time and it might prove to be her last.
    A noise outside the hut triggered a spike in her heart rate.
    Not outside her door, but Dragan’s.
    She held her breath, her spirits spiked at the sign that he was still alive. They wouldn’t carry his body back here, right? What little Margaux had seen of the camp looked like an abandoned location for drug runners.
    The slap of a door bouncing open next door came first, then the sound of something being dragged and dropped with a thud.
    Were they coming for her now?
    Her heart thudded in her ears while she waited. That was part of torture. Anticipation. Don’t feed into it. She closed her eyes and calmed herself to retain all the energy she could.
    Ten minutes passed slowly while she waited for the two guards to come for her, but the next sound she heard was Dragan sliding across the floor of his hut.
    Not dead. Still capable of walking?
    If he couldn’t walk or run, how would they escape?
    “Sugar,” came out on a hoarse voice.
    She smiled at the silly term, but grimaced at how thin his voice sounded. “How bad?”
    “Shitheads are amateurs.”  It came out “shithads ur emters.” 
    She swallowed and it hurt. She had no saliva to soothe her raw throat. “Why are they late tonight?”
    “I kept ‘em longer.”
    What? “Explain.”
    “Figured ... wear them out on me. Too tired for you.”
    You dumb fuck. Why would he take more beatings—or whatever they did to him—for her? “That was stupid.”
    “No. Strategic.”   He was silent a moment and she waited while he had to be drawing enough saliva to keep talking. “They bragged about ... plans for you. For tonight.”  More silence. “Get out. Know you can do it. Go.”
    He was telling her to escape without him, and that he recognized her skills. He’d taken their abuse to give her an edge. Damn him. She needed him strong enough